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If I understand you, you are arguing that parents should praise their kids for smartness because it helps kids to understand that they are smarter? But there i

• JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > you are arguing that parents should praise their kids for smartness because it helps kids to understand that they are smarter? I’m arguing for truthfulness. If your kid is smart, don’t shy from saying so. If they excel in other ways, point those out. Helping us to understand our strengths and weaknesses is a gift parents can give. > if self-esteem of a person based on working hard it is very good Not necessarily. It can lead to being a grunt. That’s fine if that makes one happy. But many innovations have been sprung from a combination of intelligence and laziness.
  • ordu 8y ago
    There is subtle difference between praising and telling kid that he/she is smart. Smartness should be unconditional idea for a person. I believe that 3-9 years old is the best period when parent should tell repeatedly to his kid that he/she is smart, pretty, brave and so on. But unconditionally, for child didn't come to an idea that he/she is good only if he/she is smart, pretty and brave. If he/she does, then she would be unable to say something stupid, behave cowardly, or look not so pretty without believing that she is bad. This means also that parent must never tell to his child that he is stupid, coward, ugly and in any other sense have traits that are not socially desireable. Unconditionally. All books written by psychologists to parents would tell you that. At least all I've read do. > But many innovations have been sprung from a combination of intelligence and laziness. If your child would grow to be completely not lazy person, then either you are genius of practical psychology and education, or your child have some inherent traits that make him not lazy and your efforts made little or no difference. The second is more probable. Moreover I do not believe that smart kid can grow non lazy. If he did he is not smart enough to see how he can cut corners. I know about innovations, and I did some in the past. I wrote programs for automation but you now, I had never seen success because I was a way too lazy to make this programs usable for someone except of me. My programs die when I change job. I was a way too little motivated to do more than just to write the program. And yes, I never believed that I can work hard for more than a few months. I'm "too smart" for a hard work, if I work hard it means for some deep neural net in my head that I'm not smart enough. I got this idea in the school, where I did nothing and known math better than anyone else, because I had read all math textbooks two years ago just for fun. It was supported by my knowledge that my IQ reach 142 and it is very high. I got this idea and I cannot get rid of it even now, when life keeps proving me that the idea is deadly wrong. And yes, I fear to be stupid, this fear sometimes works even if I managed to stop my impulse to make a stupid thing before anyone noticed. It is just anecdote, but I'm almost got my bachelor degree in psychology, I'm working with psychotherapist around my problems, and I believe that self-esteem should be based on manageable things, on something that is under control of a person. Smartness is not under control of a person, you can behave on impulse without thinking, you can be tricked by circumstances or other people, you can do a lot of stupid things, while trying to be smart. Moreover there are circumstances when to do something now is more important than to do something smart. So smartness is not a good base for a self-esteem.
• tomp 8y ago
  But what's wrong with basing one's self-esteem on being smart, if someone is smart?
  • ordu 8y ago
    Because intelligence is an individual trait that is totally not under control of a person. It will not work this way for a long even if person is smart. Especially if she is smart: she will see that to believe that "smart means good" is stupid (what means to be smart? to have good grades? to create a successful startup? to speak smart things? to hear others praise your smartness). So person will risk to start obsessing about smart behaviour, overcontrolling impulses, think twice before opening your mouth, a mistake is a fail that damages self-esteem, and so on... It can be good when you manage to find some unexpected creative and smart idea, but it is fun even without self-esteem: insight in any case is rewarded by brains. But creativity is an ability to generate a whole lot of ideas, stupid and smart, what would you do if your brain stopped to generate any idea in a fear to generate a stupid one? To be smart is to find non obvious idea, but to find a good idea you need to think a lot, and no rewards while you are thinking. Frustration is the common state of good thinker, and frustration itself seems from inside as inability to solve problem, as a lack of intelligence. You are working hard, but the only visible result is inability of your intelligence to solve the problem. You can fight with fatigue for some time, but if a hard work is not rewarded by you brains as a prove that you are a good boy, then this time can be too short to actually solve the problem. You should belive that you are smart unconditionally. And if sometimes you are start to doubt it, it should not be a big deal for you. Our society force people to believe that smart is good and stupid is bad, so we are subjects of a narrative that "if you are stupid, then you are bad boy. Go to your room!". There is no need for parents to make special efforts to make this narrative more powerful in your head.